Ella Condie Lamb: Changing of the Guard

"The Miniature Painter"
by Ella Condie Lamb

"Then came Black Thursday, the stock market crash of 1929, and the J. & R. Lamb Studios faced bankruptcy. That same year, their beautiful prize window from the Paris Exposition of 1900, 'Religion Enthroned,' was given to the Brooklyn Museum by Irving T. Bush.

In 1947, the Lamb's oldest son, Karl, wrote an account of the grave situation the Studios faced at this time and the steps he took to save the business and provide for Ella and Charles in their last years. He had been pursuing a career in chemical engineering  when he took over the Studios 'with much trepidation and anxiety.' He would guide it through financial crises and reorganization, meeting Charles' mounting medical and nursing bills, often borrowing heavily.

Karl's account describes the situation he had to face:

'Father was very sick with inflammatory progressive arthritis. Soon he was flat on his back for three months, and more or less crippled from then on. Father was helpless as there was no one remaining to carry on J. & $. Lamb...

I went into J. & R. Lamb with much trepidation and anxiety. Father, with all his wonderful personality and fine artistic conceptions got himself and the firm into various kinds of difficulty in later years. I had to find large sums of money for him, much more than normal, due to his illness and rapidly increasing incapacitation, which became complete several years before his death. The burden became unbearable and almost impossible by 1934...'

Karl managed to provide the income necessary to support his parents. Ella lived at The Fold until her death, as did Charles for several more years. For two years, Karl supported his own family 'by virtue of having sold some patents he had developed.' Charles wrote Karl: 'I want you always to remember, dear boy, what mother said of you. She called you a 'Rock in the Wilderness.'

Suffice it to say that the Studios recovered under Karl's direction and continued to produce many fine works. The Lamb's daughter, Katharine, gained recognition as one of the finest stained glass artists in the United States, working at the Studios until she was 83 years old."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Ella's Certain Window" by Barea Lamb Seeley.)